News

Hospitals with greater reductions in readmissions rates are no more likely to increase their observation service use than other hospitals, according to a study in the Feb. 24 New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Hospitals with good nursing environments are associated with lower mortality in surgical patients for similar costs than hospitals with worse nursing environments, according to study results published online in JAMA Surgery.

In a study looking at the infection control practices of 116 ambulatory care nurses in a health system, just 17.4 percent of them reported compliance with all nine standard precautions for infection prevention.

A study involving 150 inpatient units in 12 hospitals found “significant improvement” in hand hygiene compliance with the use of the Joint Commission’s Targeted Solutions Tool designed to reduce hospital-acquired infections. The study, published in the January issue of the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, said researchers tallied 31,600 observations in Memorial Hermann Health System hospitals and found hand hygiene compliance improved from 58.1 percent to 95.6 percent.

The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) Foundation released a free document to help health care organizations meet The Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goal on clinical alarms.